"Home" (2000)

Demo Song

Background Information

“Home” was a song developed for 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind.

In the alternate video for “Beautiful Day” filmed in Eze and Dublin’s Hanover Quay studio, that appears on the 18 Videos release, we get to see a bit of a white board listing some songs worked on during the All That You Can’t Leave Behind sessions. On that white board we see “Home” (an early version of “Walk On”), above that is “Beautiful Day (Always)” with notes saying to “add shine gtr” and “fix tamb.”, and above that is “NY / Snow is Falling” (perhaps “New York” had an alternate set of lyrics?)

But that is all we see in the commercially released video. However on U2.com in the lead up to the release of the album, a short EPK video for the album was located on the site which shows the same whiteboard, however we get to see more of it. Above “NY / Snow is Falling” is “Kite (Stuck)”, above that is “Elevation (Busy Bee)”, above that is “Stuck in a Moment”, and the last title we see before the camera pans away is “Original of the Species (Everywhere I Go)”.

In Propaganda magazine’s Summer 2000 issue, The Edge is interviewed, and he also mentions a song called “Home”:

“Stuck in a Moment (Which You Can’t Get Out Of)” is very strong because it’s so unusual. It’s like an incredible pop song, but done by us and done our way so it sounds like a U2 song but it’s incredibly melodic and also has this gospel aspect. Another track called “Home” is going to be a stand-out, very uplifting and beautiful. There’s a tune called “Elevation” which has an almost hip-hop groove – but being played by us doesn’t sound like anything out there”.

In the summer of 2000, in an issue of Propaganda, there is an interview with The Edge and Danny Lanois as they work on the album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, and during that interview the song “Home” is mentioned:

There’s a large whiteboard hung on the studio wall. On the left-hand side, the band have listed twelve tracks, followed by boxes with ticks inside them — big or small — indicating the progress of lyric, arrangement, recording and so on. On the right hand side of the board is another list, with another eight songs. Surely not a double album? “The songs on the left are those that are favourites for the album,” explains Edge “The songs on the right are those that are fighting for a place on the album.” As he says this he suddenly remembers another track presumably from another list that is fighting to be remembered to get on a whiteboard to get on the album. “Peace on Earth,” he says to Lanois. “Danny, we’ve forgotten to put up Peace on Earth.” “That’s true,” says Lanois. “But you know, we might only need nine great songs to make a great album.”

The names of the songs are working titles and may well be entirely different by the autumn, but for the record, the column on the right reads: “Original of the Species”; “Stuck in a Moment”; “Elevation”; “Kite”; “Yesterday and Tomorrow”; “Sometime”; “Home”; “In a Little While”; “The Sun, The Moon and The Stars”, and “Wild Honey”. The column on the left features “When I Look at the World”; “Beautiful Day”; “Jubilee”; “Bulldozer”; “Love and Peace (Soul)”, “Stranded and Grace”. “Wow!” says Lanois, scribbling in his notebook as the tape rolls again. “‘Lonely Soul’.” “No that wasn’t ‘Lonely Soul’,” says the guitarist, “That’s ‘Morning’ he’s singing.”

In the same article it is also mentioned that Edge suggests ways of musically re-editing “Home” to the engineer. At the end of the article they move “In a Little While” from the left side of the board, moving it to the right, and then adds “Peace on Earth” on the board.

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